


Ambient

by Jezunya



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Reading, Reading Aloud, can be read as romance or bromance, quiet fluffy times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 12:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/965976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jezunya/pseuds/Jezunya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, John reads to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ambient

Sometimes, John reads to him.

It starts with short snippets of articles in the paper, titbits of crimes meant to pique Sherlock’s interest. Then it’s medical journals, topics germane to a current case, some unknown expert’s words tempered by John’s crime scene experience and dry wit.

Sending texts for him has been a staple of their relationship ever since the beginning, and so it really comes as no shock at all when Sherlock can’t be bothered to move from his supine position on the couch and John is left to sigh, shake his head, and read out the recent emails from various frantic clients.

When the power goes out one dreary winter evening and they’re left with nothing but candles and the fireplace for light and warmth, Sherlock is near to tearing the wallpaper off in strips for his boredom – and John has the audacity to sit placidly in his armchair, silently reading some infernal novel by the firelight. Sherlock can tell how it ends with a single sneering glance at the cover, and announces such to the room at large, only for John to give him an amused look and reply that he hasn’t got all the evidence yet.

The book is expectedly predictable, if made only slightly more bearable by the rise and fall of John’s voice. Sherlock interrupts every few paragraphs to argue over supposed clues and bemoan the idiotic reasoning of the characters, and very nearly doesn’t notice that he’s no longer bored. The evening passes quickly and John heads up to bed at half two in the morning, and even though the power is back on the next day, Sherlock shoves the novel back into his flatmate’s hands the moment John comes stumbling downstairs for tea and demands that they finish reading it that very day.

It quickly becomes habit for them. On quiet days, in between cases, if Sherlock isn’t playing his violin, John will read aloud. They don’t turn on the telly much anymore, not unless there’s an interesting documentary on or a new episode of Doctor Who. Otherwise, the only sounds in 221B are the soft shuffle of clothing, socks against rug fibres, gentle clinking of china, tea cups on an end table, the kettle boiling and clicking itself off – and John, reading someone else’s words and vastly improving them by his utterance.

Sherlock finds himself growing twitchy, concentration broken by silence that would previously have been the perfect environment for experiments or Mind Palace Maintenance. He needs noise – and not noise in fact, not the ambient sounds with which London is rife, but John’s voice. John, reading, to Sherlock. It doesn’t even matter what he’s reading; the simple, solid, steady timbre of John’s words is the elusive ingredient, the calming agent that allows Sherlock’s thoughts to flow free.

John is amused, quietly gratified, mostly just calm whenever Sherlock prompts him to read aloud. He takes this in stride just as he does everything else in their mad life.

Sherlock doesn’t thank him, doesn’t communicate the effect that John’s voice has on him.

He doesn’t really need to.

There are days when Sherlock is frustrated and weary of the world, disgusted with humanity in all of its vapidity and inanity, nursing hidden wounds from barbed words and thrown insults, genius reviled, labelled as inhuman, weird, freakish.

On these days, John comes to sit at the opposite end of the couch from his flatmate’s huddled, foetal form, book in hand. He opens to a marked page, where they two had left off previously or where he’d been reading on his own – it makes no difference now. As John begins to read, Sherlock slowly uncurls, at first peeking a single silvered eye over one dressing gown clad shoulder, and then gradually turning, inching nearer along the length of the sofa.

At last, with a heavy sigh, Sherlock deposits his head in John's lap. Here the detective finds peace, John’s voice a sheltering murmur flowing around him, around them both, and John’s hand rubbing slow, warm circles across his back.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr](http://jezunya.tumblr.com/)


End file.
